Waldorf Upper School
Age 14-18 : Classes 9-12
Secondary School & Sixth Form Years 10-13
The journey into young adulthood.
As pupils mature into older teenagers, their desire to argue, debate, challenge, think critically, explore and move towards adulthood becomes the driving force to learning.
Our Waldorf three dimensional approach to education continues in the Upper School integrating academics with immersive experience, arts, crafts, and sports, however in this third phase, the focus is on abstract, in depth, critical thinking with an emphasis on the ability for analysis.
To support intellectual development, our curriculum takes students beyond a superficial understanding of subjects and requires students to explore issues in depth with intensive focus.
The curriculum also builds on developing each student’s personal responsibility and independence, along with social and civic awareness and our small class sizes mean that pupils have expert academic attention and support.
Classes 10, 11, 12 students study the NZCSE, an international Waldorf qualification, recognised by UCAS and accepted by UK universities and on a par with A-Levels and International Baccalaureate.
The qualification is points-based and involves continuous assessment that is both internally and externally moderated and enables pupils to go on to university both in the UK and overseas. With a broad and integrated curriculum it includes STEM, Humanities, Languages, Arts, Critical Thinking and Personal Development.
University offers for NZCSE students include:
Class 9: age 14-15
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Literacy
The History of Drama and Theatre including tragedy and comedy. Enabling students to see different points of view, we examine a range of emotions from social and psychological perspectives.
The Narrative Tradition explored through:
- Novels and short stories
- Development of characters and literary devices
- Shakespeare: structure and language
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Mathematics
Mathematical Rhythms, Patterns and Sequences
- We put mathematics into an historical context and trace the threads in a developing tapestry of connections and relationships and enter a world of deepening abstractions. Here mathematics becomes more than the conventional learning and application of principles, methods and techniques: it is through the identification and development of the rhythms of number patterns that students develop an intuitive grasp of processes, principles and concepts that lead to and support a deeper intellectual understanding.
• Geometry - Plane and Solid Geometry - Conic Curves are constructed, their properties investigated and the relationships between the different curves explored.
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Physics & Engineering
Concepts are understood through students learning about the inventors and technology of the 19th and 20th Centuries and the relationship between the machines and the consciousness that accompanies their use.
Topics include heat and its relationship to the development of engines, from the early steam engines to modern internal combustion engines.
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Foreign Languages
Creation of a Foreign Language Audio Drama, including its performance and recording
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Art History
The History of Art /Aesthetics
- The origins of the Western tradition are explored from Ancient Egypt through Greece to Rome and Early Christian art leading to the Middle Ages and the dawn of the Italian Renaissance.
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Physiology and Anatomy
Study of the human skeletal and muscular system and the sense organs
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Organic Chemistry
Study includes:
the role of carbon and its compounds
the rarefaction and solidification of products starting from glucose
production of alcohols, fossil fuel extraction
natural and industrial organic compounds and their polymers; characteristics
production and use of starch, cellulose, wood, coal, wax and oil..
Experimental investigation includes fermentation and distillation; fossil fuels
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Modern History
These lessons awaken an interest in the world and enable students to understand the historical forces that create the current global situation. Covering the start of a new millennium, the end of Cold War and its proxy conflicts with Asia and Africa, the end of Colonialism and the resulting complex world, themes around ideology and propaganda, and the globalisation of both the world economy and communications systems.
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Human Geography
Human Geography such as analysing population, migration and relating it to the land itself, linking to History Main Lessons.
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Politics
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Arts
- Drawing
– ‘Chiaroscuro’ - light and shadow in painting and drawing. - Modelling – clay modelling and sculpture within the Platonic solids geometry lesson; plaster casting; casting with other materials; techniques for mask making; woodcarving; soft stone carvings. • Basket Making
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Physical Geography
Tectonic and Geomorphological processes, including erosion and volcanic activity.
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Handwork
Looking at Fibres, structure and recycled fashion
• Pattern creation and cutting; Dress-making
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Sport & Movement
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Craft
• Woodwork – carpentry and joinery to make shelves, lidded boxes, toolboxes, steps etc. teach accurate measurement and self-assessment of quality.
Copper beating
Blacksmithing
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Ceramics
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Practical Geometry
Understanding, calculating and creating the geometry of Conic Sections
Class 10: age 15-16
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English Language
From Myth to Literature - The transition from pre-literate cultural forms such as myth, saga, and religious ritual to the origins of literature, with its shift from collective to individual experience.
Poetry – Pupils examine different poetic forms and look at how words can be used non-literally, delving deep into the rhythms and sounds of the natural world through language. Pupils learn how to understand and to compose different styles of poetry.
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Mathematics
Algebra - Exploring principles, processes and methods and solving a wide range of algebraic and graphical problems.
• Trigonometry - Investigating the development and application of the fundamental principles of Trigonometry. Study includes the Theorem of Pythagoras and the Sine, Cosine, Tangent and Cotangent ratios for angles between 0° and 90° described and defined.
• Surveying - Practical application of Mathematics learned in Trigonometry. Students explain and demonstrate the use of surveying instruments to measure and record distances and horizontal angles and draw a scaled map with boundaries and topography.
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Physics
Focus on Mechanics. Covering tensile and compressive forces, centre of area and centre of gravity, conditions for equilibrium, moments of forces, resolution of forces and the triangle and polygon of forces, elasticity, the stiffness of springs and Hooke’s Law.
Experiments in dynamics look at velocity and acceleration. Uniform acceleration as the result of gravity acting on a mass in free fall and the relationship between force, mass and acceleration will be investigated and discussed.
Potential and kinetic energy is explored and defined.
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Physiology and Anatomy
Students study comparisons in the brain and nervous system with the study of the heart and circulations.
The brain’s relationship to perception, thought and memory provides a basis for discussing consciousness and moral aspects of conscience.
The relationship of the heart and circulation system to emotional experience is studied.
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Inorganic Chemistry
Students study acids, bases, and salts and the reactivity series of metals through experiment, observation and analysis. They examine different minerals from the earth and consider how and from what they formed.
Students will look and make salt crystals, investigate the role of water in crystallisation, discover the qualities and reactivity of metals and start balancing reaction equations using words and symbols.
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Social Sciences
The relationship of Early Civilisation to its geography; the dependence of people on the Earth, the climate, the resources, contrasting it with the present disconnection/independence from the natural world. Archaeological remains from the last Ice Age are studied to discover what they can tell us about the way people lived and interacted.
The development of the early civilisations of the Tigris and Euphrates, the Nile, the Indus river and Yellow river are studied: how they influenced each other, later civilisations and ultimately the culture of the modern world.
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Foreign Languages
A study of international humorous texts, jokes and idiomatic expression to support the broadening of students’ social, psychological and cultural horizons.
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Art
Drawing and Painting – Formal composition and principles of shaping a picture. Exploring colour, atmosphere and mood. The logic involved in planning pictures or designs that may need to be drawn in mirror form, or in which a composite picture is built up using several plats or blocks challenges the students’ power of thinking as well as the precision involved in the work.
• Print-making - applied to a range of media.
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Philosophy
Pythagoras, Socrates, Confucius. Plato, and Aristotle and how the philosophers of the 5th and 6th Centuries BC influence modern thinking, including what it means to be human and the purpose of existence.
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Geography
Study includes
Climate Change
Plate Tectonics
Geomorphology
Atmosphere
Ocean Circulation
Students also create and present a detailed study of a natural hazard.
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English Literature
Shakespeare and Drama – Shakespeare’s texts and dramatic devices are analysed and dramatic characterisation and staging discussed and worked with practically.
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Genetics & Sustainability
OUTDOOR LEARNING
Students develop their knowledge through gardening and farming, both in school and during external visits.
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Craft & Handwork
• Dress making and tailoring – provide individual patterns relating to the rectangular shape of the woven cloth.
• Woodwork – provides the concepts of plumb, square and true
• Pottery – reinforcing science with an awareness of the perpendicular in relation to the horizontal plane.
• Metal work – understanding material, force, shape and process through practical work.
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GCSE Maths
Sitting both GCSE Maths & English Language gives students the experience and skills of writing under examination condition and enables students to meet Government criteria for a Student Loan at University.
One hour per week for each is taken to prepare for the exams using subject knowledge gained from our Waldorf curriculum.
Our Class 10 GCSE results for 2023 were a 100% Pass with grades ranging from Grades 4-9.
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GCSE English Language
Sitting both GCSE Maths & English Language gives students the experience and skills of writing under examination condition and enables students to meet Government criteria for a Student Loan at University.
One hour per week for each is taken to prepare for the exams using subject knowledge gained from our Waldorf curriculum.
Our Class 10 GCSE results for 2023 were a 100% Pass with grades ranging from Grades 4-9.
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Sports
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Personal Development
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Drama
Class 11
As young adults, students of Class 11 start to develop a deep inner life as well as a maturing intellect. They have a greater level of objectivity and self-knowledge and begin to find an inner orientation between appearance and reality, between what is said and what is meant. They are challenged to find their own way, to make decisions and to consider the full consequences of their actions.
In support of this, the underlying themes for Class 11 are about morality and thinking and the development of an understanding that with knowledge there is power – which must be used wisely to be of service to others.
Class 11: Age 16-17